Use of Cystatin C to Assess Kidney Function
What About Cystatin C?
August 2011
Although creatinine is very useful marker of GFR, given the problems discussed above people have looked for alternatives. One example is cystatin C, a low-molecular-weight protein that is also freely filtered in the kidney. Compared to creatinine, production of cystatin C is much less influenced by a person’s age, gender, and size. Therefore, blood levels of cystatin C better reflect GFR than serum creatinine, and over recent years much effort has been spent evaluating cystatin C as a GFR marker.
What About Cystatin C? |
Jump to section:
- Introduction
- A Case
- Questions
- What do the kidneys do?
- Why Measure Renal Function?
- How Is Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) Defined?
- Stages of Chronic Kidney Disease
- Laboratory Assessment of Kidney Function: What Can We Measure?
- Creatinine as a Marker of GFR
- Creatinine as a Marker of GFR: It Works But...
- How Can We Turn the Serum Creatinine Into a Better Estimate of GFR?
- Revised eGFR Equation (ID-MS version)
- eGFR Equation Works, But it's Not Perfect
- What About Cystatin C?
- Mayo Renal Laboratory Cystatin C By Particle Enhanced Turbidometric Immunoassay (PETIA)
- Comparison To Current Nephelometric Assay (PENIA) Reveals 23% Bias
- Cystatin C PENIA Assay Shift (19%)
- Cystatin C eGFR Using Published Equation* Performs Well3
- Cystatin C Equations Categorize Patients Slightly Better Than MDRD eGFR
- Cystatin C Reference Range
- PETIA Cystatin C Reference Range
- Cystatin C: Useful To Confirm Those At Risk Of CKD Progression And Its Complications (REGARDS)4
- Cystatin C: CKD Progression and Complications (MESA and CHS)5
- Cystatin C in the Acute Hospitalized Setting6
- Back to Our Patient
- Potential Interventions
- Conclusions
- References
- Questions?


